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Topic: What's going on with this split? (Read 1199 times)

Twenty days ago, I put a capped queen cell in a nuc along with a couple frames of brood and a frame of honey. Today I took a peek hoping to see a new queen or at least eggs and larvae. There was no sign of a queen, but there was a new capped queen cell, and a lot fewer bees than I remember.

An old research paper I read said that 1.5% of the bees in a colony die every day. So no bees emerging while a queen was waiting to mature means your population drops. You also probably had some of the split bees drifting back to original colony. If you haven't made any changes to things in 20 days, it sounds like your split raised a poor queen and she died shortly after starting laying or the bees are superceding her. I think you need to either give up on this one and return the geriactic bees to another colony or boost them with more frames of bees and brood. The cell you see was not raised in anything like good conditions and her quality is questionable. I don't think you have good odds of a colony forming that can make the winter.

What are the other conditions of the nuc? By your post I assume it is not growing. From what you have said no queen for at least 8wks. Can you post pictures? You say no eggs, do you have problems spotting eggs? Have you ever spotted eggs in a hive before? If you perhaps have vision problems, have you looked with a small LED light? You say no eggs so I guess no multiple eggs in cells. Just trying to explore the possibilities.

But............ most likely----You said July 1st:>Thanks. I added another frame of brood to see what they do with it, I'll report back.

Are the new cells on a frame of brood you added July 1st? Are the queen cells capped. If so you are were queenless on July 1st and you are on less than day 13 (depending when the egg was laid in the cell) of the 28 day queen cycle again, from hatching to laying.

Are the queen cells capped. If so you are were queenless on July 1st and you are on less than day 13 (depending when the egg was laid in the cell) of the 28 day queen cycle again, from hatching to laying.

The nuc was started with a capped queen cell. Twenty days later, there was a new capped queen cell. At the last examination, there were two uncapped queen cells with larvae in them.